1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a printing medium having separable marginal areas and a primary printable area intended for use with a conventional printer, such as an inkjet or laser printer; and a method of printing an image on the printing medium using the conventional printer. The printing medium and method of printing in accordance with the present invention is particularly applicable for the creation of finished printed products such as personal greeting cards, invitations, announcements, photo-type prints, and the like using conventional printers to achieve a professional finish look.
2. Background of the Invention
The advancement made in image forming technology has been considerable in recent years. In particular, the improvement in the quality of images using today""s printers, including inkjet and laser printers, has created a demand for the ability to create affordable personal printed products such as greeting cards, invitations, announcements, photo-type prints, and the like that are comparable in quality to those made by professional printing companies.
To meet this growing demand, companies have developed paper products of high quality for use with inkjet and/or laser printers. Also, in connection with the development of these high quality paper products, companies have marketed software for selecting and printing various images onto these paper products. For example, many companies now offer a large selection of greeting card graphic images for every occasion which are stored on computer diskettes or CDROMs, or which are increasingly being made available for downloading from the Internet, and which are adapted to be used with a conventional desktop publishing program to create high quality personalized greeting cards.
However, one problem encountered when printing using conventional inkjet and/or laser printers is that, for any given size printing medium, these printers require marginal areas on sides of the printing medium to transport the printing medium through the printer. That is, these printers are not capable of printing from edge-to-edge on the printing medium. For example, widely used conventional inkjet printers require a non-print region at the leading edge, the side edges and the rear edge of the printing medium. These non-print regions are necessary to grip and transport the printing medium inside of the printer.
Furthermore, depending on the printer, the size of the non-print regions of the leading edge and the rear edge may be different, thereby offsetting the print region from the central part of the printing medium which reduces the overall quality of an image printed thereon. On the other hand, if the size of non-print region produced at the leading edge of the printing medium is set to be the same as the size of the non-print region produced at the trailing edge so that the print region can be centered from top to bottom on the printing medium, a very large non-print region is required at both the leading and trailing edges.
Therefore, since conventional printers are incapable of printing from edge-to-edge on the printing medium, personal greeting cards, invitations, announcements, photo-type prints, and the like using conventional desktop printing systems have margins at the edges of the finished printed output. Such margins, which may be unequal as explained above, result in a finished look which is inferior to that of similar professionally printed products.
FIGS. 1a and 1b illustrate an example of the foregoing problem in the case of a greeting card. These figures show a conventional printing medium 1 having a graphical image 3 printed within side margins 4 on the front panel on one side of the printing medium, and a greeting 5 (e.g., xe2x80x9cHappy Birthdayxe2x80x9d) printed on the greeting panel on the other side of the printing medium. The printing medium further includes a score line 2 along which the printing medium can be folded to obtain a folded greeting card as shown in FIG. 2.
FIG. 3 illustrates an example of the foregoing problem in the case of a photo-type print or postcard. In particular, FIG. 3 shows a conventional printing medium 6 used to print a high quality image 7 similar to a photograph. As evident from the illustration, although the quality of the printed image itself may be very good, the overall appearance of the image on the printing medium is inferior to that of an actual photograph or professionally printed postcard because it is not possible to set the size of the leading non-print margin 8 having a dimension d1 equal to that of the trailing non-print margin 9 having a dimension d2 due to the transport mechanisms in most conventional printers. Accordingly, the overall layout of the image 7 is not proportional (i.e., not centered from left to right) with respect to the printing medium. In order to alter the margins so that they are proportional, or in order to remove the margins altogether, the printing medium must be manually cut.
To overcome the foregoing shortcomings, U.S. application Ser. No. 08/946,222, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discloses a printing medium 10 as shown in FIG. 4 having perforations 11 which define separable portions (or marginal areas) 12 outwardly therefrom along a peripheral part of the printing medium, and which define a primary printing area 13 enclosed inwardly therefrom. The printing medium can be manufactured with the perforations formed at different distances from the edges of the printing medium accounting, for example, for the difference between the leading and trailing edge margins required to properly transport the printing medium through a printer. That is, as shown in FIG. 4, the primary printing area can be positioned off-center with respect to the printing medium 10. Accordingly, an image 14 can easily be printed on the printing medium such that the edges of the printed image is centered with respect to the primary printing area, and such that, upon removal of the separable portions after printing, the resulting finished printed output has a well balanced appearance.
Furthermore, in one particular embodiment, U.S. application 08/946,222 discloses the so-called xe2x80x9cbleed printingxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cfull bleed printingxe2x80x9d technique in combination with the perforated printing medium to achieve a finished printed product having a professional quality look similar to that, for example, of an actual photograph. In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, the image 15 is printed such that the actual print area extends some distance beyond the perforations 11 and into the separable portions 12. Upon removal of the separable portions after printing, the resulting finished printed output extends completely to the edge of the finished product.
One example of a commercially available printing medium which incorporates the invention disclosed in U.S. application Ser. No. 08/946,222 is PAPERSTUDIOS"" PAPEREDGE GRC170G1CC01-JP printing medium. This printing medium also has a perforated line defining outwardly therefrom a continuous outer portion or margin along the entire periphery of the printing medium, and defining inwardly therefrom a primary printable area. A user of the PAPERSTUDIOS"" printing medium may connect to the company""s Internet web site and download images which are formatted to print beyond the perforations and into the continuous margin along the entire periphery of the printing medium using conventional software application programs such as MICROSOFT WORD.
The present invention provides a novel and non-obvious improvement upon the printing medium and method of printing an image thereon disclosed in U.S. application Ser. No. 08/946,222. In particular, an object of the present invention is to provide a printing medium for use in the creation of a finished printed product such as personal greeting cards, invitations, announcements, photo-type prints, and the like using conventional printers; and that have a professional finish look while maintaining at least part of one edge of the original printing medium in the finished printed product.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a printing medium for use in a printing system such as a personal printing which includes a substrate having an outer periphery; and perforations or perforated lines spaced inwardly from part of the outer periphery in, for example, a U-shape so as to define separable marginal areas outside the perforations, and so as to define a primary printable area inside the perforations. The perforations extend to an edge the printing medium such that the defined primary printable area also extends to the same edge of the printing medium.
The present invention also provides a method of making a finished printed output having graphical content printed to an edge of the finished printed output. The method includes the step of providing a print medium having separating portions or a perforated line spaced inwardly from part of the outer periphery of the print medium so as to define separable marginal areas outside the perforated line, and so as to define a primary printable area inside the perforated line, and extending to an edge of the printing medium. The method further includes the step of loading the print medium into a printer, printing a graphical image on the one side of the print medium so that an edge of the primary printable area, upon removing the separable marginal areas, has at least a portion of the graphical image printed thereat, and manually removing the separable marginal areas so that the remaining portion of the print medium becomes the finished printed output having at least the portion of the graphical image extending completely to an edge of the finished printed output.
Accordingly, an advantage of the present invention is that, by maintaining an edge of the printing medium in the final finished printed product, the number of separable marginal areas can be reduced, thereby making it simpler for the user to create the finished product. Additionally, since the perforated line extends to an edge of the printing medium, the user will find it easier to begin the separation of the marginal areas. Furthermore, by maintaining an edge of the printing medium in the final finished product, the finished product will have at least one smooth edge which is precut by the manufacturer.
Moreover, printing mediums having non-continuous perforations in accordance with the present invention are relatively less expensive to manufacture then printing mediums having continuous perforations, since the conventional printing mediums require additional perforations.